Sandia LabNews

Younger: A Sputnik moment is coming

Laboratories Director Steve Younger and Chief Research Officer Susan Seestrom took the stage at the Steve Schiff Auditorium Aug. 26 to discuss “discovery science” and what it means for Sandia. The talk was the latest installment of the New Research Ideas Forum.

Experiments at sun temperature offer solar model solutions

Physicists at Sandia’s Z machine have found that a widely used astronomical model underestimates the energy blockage caused by free-floating iron atoms. Now, Sandia’s experimental opacity measurements can help bloodlessly resolve a major discrepancy in how the 40-year-old Standard Solar Model uses the composition of the sun to predict the behavior of stars.

Getting to the nuts and bolts of nuts and bolts

After more than five years, a mathematical breakthrough devised by a structural engineer and a computational scientist may save Sandia time and resources to test complex systems. The method is now being used in production in Sandia's Sierra code, and the designers say its potential is limited only by researchers' imagination.